Michael Reagan: The GOP Should Dump Its 'Litmus Test'

The GOP Should Dump Its Litmus Test By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | February 16, 2007

The philosopher Diogenes is said to have wandered around ancient Greece holding a lantern and seeking to find an honest man.

My fellow Republicans, sans lanterns, are now wandering around the political landscape seeking to find the perfect Republican presidential candidate.

I don’t know if Diogenes ever found that honest man, but I do know that those Republicans are never going to find the perfect candidate, simply because he does not exist.

Some Republicans insist that the only perfect candidate would be a clone of my Dad, Ronald Reagan. Aside from the fact that there is no such thing, it’s important to recognize that Ronald Reagan, as he often admitted, was anything but perfect.

One of the criticisms about former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney focuses on his record concerning the abortion issue. We are told by the modern day Diogenes clones that he can’t be trusted to fight abortion because he once, more or less, supported a woman’s right to butcher her baby.

It may come as a surprise to these purists, but Ronald Reagan once supported abortion too. Yet nobody ever questioned his strong pro-life credentials after his conversion to Republicanism. They accepted his sincerity. Why can’t they accept Mitt Romney’s?

Romney’s record shows he should be totally acceptable to all conservatives, yet because of one dubious question concerning the validity of his conversion to the pro-life side, he is deemed unsuitable to carry the conservative banner.

The same is true of Rudy Giuliani. On every major issue, he is a solidly conservative and extraordinarily adept executive, but because he backs abortion and some form of gun control, America’s mayor -- the hero of 9/11 and the man who did the impossible by cleaning up New York -- is all but ruled out as a 2008 candidate.

Not one of the major candidates is free of some real or imagined flaw that offends some conservatives.

This is madness, and if it does not stop, the GOP is going to lose the presidential election in 2008. In the search for the perfect candidate we are going to end up with an imperfect candidate. Keep in mind the truism that agreement with someone on most issues and disagreement on others is seen as normal, but should you agree with someone on every single issue imaginable … well… to put it plainly, psychologists say you’re nuts.

I recently got a letter from a conservative Christian organization that asked me if the current GOP candidates are the best the Republican Party has to offer.

“Is it possible that GOP conservative ranks are this thin?” the letter writer asked. “Has the GOP nothing better to offer? Should not pro-family pro-life voters also want a low taxes and limited government candidate before they vigorously support him? Increased taxes and expanded government hurts everyone. Was Ronald Wilson Reagan an anomaly and did he represent the values of his party?

“These GOP candidates,” the letter instructed me, “are little better than Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, or [George] H.W. Bush. Did anyone notice they all lost?”

This makes me wonder if anybody can stand up to the litmus test these people are applying to candidates.

Ronald Reagan had one litmus test he applied to candidates. Were they Republicans? If they were he backed them all the way. He would let the party choose the candidate and he would support and vote for the candidate. He didn’t go sniffing around trying to find some flaw in their character or their past. Once nominated, they were his choice.

And nobody was more candid in admitting that he was anything but perfect than my Dad. He knew that like all men, he had his flaws and he spent a lifetime combating them. Had today’s GOP litmus test been seriously applied to him, he could not have passed the test.

The Democrats don’t have litmus tests. If the nominee is a Democrat, they support their candidate all the way, and if they lose it isn’t because they didn’t fight like demons for their man or woman.

If we want to win in 2008, Republicans had better wake up, and quit talking Ronald Reagan and start being like Ronald Reagan.

To the FReepers in attendance and the millions watching around the world on Pay Per View…Ladies and Gentleman...

LLLLLLLets Get Ready to RRRumblllllllle!!!!

1,500,000,000 rounds of posts, arguments, insults, cheesy graphics, name calling, and debate for the FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!

"Introducing first, to my right, fighting out of the red corner, wearing their Sunday best with a gold crucifix...weighing in at 800 pounds...the social conservatives, the religious right, the champions of family values...from the Southern States...The Evangelicals!" (wild applause)

"And in the blue corner, wearing an off the rack suit, Goldwater ’64 lapel pin and a belt 2 sizes too small...weighing in at 140 pounds soaking wet...the fiscal conservatives, the last champions of limited government...from the Western States...The Libertarians!" (wild applause)

I don’t know how Rudy always manages to be in the wrong (right) place at the right (wrong) time. First in the middle of 9/11 and then this battle between the social and fiscal conservatives.

Chapter 1: Live From the Reagan Building

I understand your frustration. There are "Republican" candidates out there that would send me flying out the door like a bat out of hell. See Bloomberg(RINO posterboy) and Huckabee . Giuliani is not one of those candidates for me.

If you can say that Rudy and Bloomy are the same....you are worse than just NUTS; you're so ignorant of accurate facts, that there is NO way to have a rational debate with you.

Obviously the same disease, that has infected many a FREEPER, vis-a-vis Reagan, has now also infected many a FREEPERs memory and they ( you too ) are spouting myths, instead of fact.

So, yet again, I guess it's time for this history lesson, which I do jope all of you mythographers finally take to heart!

All of you LOVE to point out things about Rudy, which make him undesireable to you and completely shut out the same and WORSE defects that Newt has....in SPADES!

Newt has been married THREE times and divorced TWICE! His FIRST wife had been his HIGH SCHOOL MATH TEACHER. He handed her divorce papers, in the hospital, where she was due to CANCER.

His second wife ALSO got divorce papers, in the hospital! See a pattern emerging here?

His third wife was a GOVERNMENT secretary, whom he was diddling, in his OFFICE, on GOVERNMENT TIME, at the same time he was excoriating Bill Clinton for using Monica as a humidor, in the OVAL OFFICE.

Newt's negatives are the same or greater than Hillary's! And that includes Dems, GOPers, and Undies view of him.

He caved and caved and then caved some more, to the Clintons, when Speaker and has now been traveling around the nation WITH Hillary, giving her aid and cover;. just as he did for Bill.

Newt is and always has been a tree hugger/quasi GREENIE. If that isn't bad enough, not only is he crazy about THE THIRD WAVE, but has made many a speech about this new agey, overlaid with MARXIST cant book, telling everyone to read it! The Tofflers owe him some money for that...LOL

This book, the third in a series of three, is so far off into some weirdo combination of Scientology, Marxism, HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, with a bit of extreme globalism, that NO Conservative of any stripe should find anything palatable in it; let alone espouse its "philosophy" ; not to mention pimp it.

And then we come to Newt's latest incarnation....the clone of Mario Cuomo's HAMLET ON THE HUDSON act. No, he isn't running; Newt isn't even thinking about running..........yet. He wants to spread his ideas and "wisdom" to both parties...TO BOTH PARTIES AND TO ALL CANDIDATES AND POLITICIANS! Perhaps, he's said, he'll begin to contemplate "thinking" about whether or not he'll enter the primary in September. Ooooooooppppppppps.....now he's moved that up to next OCTOBER!

Now, the problem with waiting that long to contemplate and cogitate, is that by September or October, ALL of the BIG MONEY, all of the political backing, and ALL of the best of the very BEST guys and gals one needs to form one's personal team and teams on the ground in not only the front loaded states ( Iowa, N.H. and probably N.Y., California, Florida, Texas, and N.J.; to list but a few ) will be all gone! And NO, nobody is going to defect and join Newt, after most of 2007 working for somebody else!

If he is THIS stupid, which I don't believe he is, to actually play this game, all I can say is...some "cream of the crop".....................NOT!

What I believe this coy ploy of Newt's is, is to keep his name out their, making people want to have him on their radio and T.V. shows, more than usual. It might also be a ploy to catch the eye of the major GOP candidates, in the hope for a VEEP slot/place in their cabinet. But no matter WHAT this is, it is really STUPID! Don't talk about Newt's supposed " brainpower"; that now looks like pretty low wattage.

Was Newt great with the CWA? Absolutely!

Was he tenacious in shoving the Welfare Reform Bill under Slick's nose, THREE times? Absolutely!

Are there a few other good things he did as Speaker? Absolutely, but he left that job under a very large black cloud and slunk away, his tail between his legs.

Romney isn't a RINO and neither is Rudy; both are Republicans and Rudy has far MORE Conservative attributes and positions than those blinkered are willing to see.

Newt was a GREAT back bencher; once in power, he had NO idea how to handle it and allowed himself to be rolled...EARLY on, with the closing of the government at Christmas time; yet, with NO plan B and absolutely NO comeback. That is NOT leadership.

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